Monday, September 3, 2012

Delapidated Denim and Salvaged Sticks

You're looking at strips of denim and a piece of the squiggly tree. The denim was worn soft by my brother, painted and distressed and slit by me, and raveled out in the dryer...all in the name of making a unique, blue-toned, flowing skirt for the Grandmother Moon painting I'm currently creating. Talk about yet another lesson in patience! Have you ever washed, dried, and then untangled a dozen or more half inch strips of ragged denim? It's like untangling a knot in a jewelry chain, *if* a metal chain could melt and then re-meld into all kinds of crooked and twisted joints all along its length. The good thing is that I *wanted* the raveled look. The almost-turned-into-bad thing is that I could easily have ripped all those strands completely in two! Uh huh, it takes a wee bit of time to untangle all those threads and twisted knots of denim. It was oddly comforting, though.

Quite possibly, the comforting part can be attributed to my love of worn denim. I love the colors of a pair of worn jeans-- pale blues, bleached out whites, and stray streaks of stubborn indigo. I love the feel of a pair of worn jeans-- soft but strong, slighty rough but supple. Call it a bit of tactile therapy, this unraveling of a big knot of denim strips. Call it insanity. Call it what you will. It was fun!

I'm hoping ol' Grandmother Moon will appreciate her rag skirt, as well as her walking stick made from a fallen branch of the squiggly tree. I've been sneaking a few sterling silver beads and tubes and scraps of wires out of my jewelry making stash, too. Those should make for some very pretty silver touches to the whole picture!

Sounds like a lot of trouble for a painting celebrating the August 2012 Blue Moon, since the blue moon has come and gone and the painting is still a work in progress, huh? Yes and no. Yes, this could be "wasted" time/work/materials if the blue moon reference is relegated to the "been there, done that, it's over now" bin. You know, the who buys a Nativity scene in February unless it's on clearance train of thought could doom any interest in her. But do I really think she's wasted effort now that the blue moon is waning? Heck, no. Creating this deep blue, primordial apparition of wisdom and oneness with the sky is fun, fun in a deep and thoughtful way, fun in that it makes my heart light every time I figure out another step and continue the canvas.

I'd liken this feeling to the satisfaction that comes from a season of gardening, except I generally lose interest after the seeds are covered with soil. But, yeah, it is the same kind of satisfaction, the slow build-up to a wonderful finish.

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So, that's what's not-so-new on the painting front as this new week begins. As for home, work, school, football, and soccer, everything keeps right on rolling! James' football team has won two games now, and he's starting to look like a football player instead of an uncertain kid in shoulder pads and shiny tight pants. Kate has her first soccer game this week, and I think she's going to like it a bunch. Homework is homework... and I don't like Junior High as much now as I did when I was a kid (instead being the mom experiencing it secondhand through fairly constant nagging about homework and responsibility and such). They're growing into it, though, and I understand that if I blink, when I look again they'll be in college. Hey, it's starting to feel like fall here, too, so all in all, it's a great time :-)

2 comments:

Wow Ang - I can't wait to see what you do with these denim pieces. I actually wonder if you cut apart a pair of soft jeans and then stitched them together if you could then stretch it as a canvas and gesso and begin layering there. Gosh, you really get my head thinking with the art you do!